Once Upon a Time's Adelaide Kane on that Drizella reveal

Is Drizella the mastermind behind the curse this season on Once Upon a Time?

The plot thickened as to who really cast the curse after it was revealed that Cinderella’s (Dania Ramirez) wicked stepsister Drizella (Adelaide Kane), a.k.a. Ivy, is actually awake and working with the mysterious witch (Emma Booth) in Victoria’s (Gabrielle Anwar) tower.

Could she be the true villain of the season? We’ll get much more info this week via flashback as Drizella seeks Regina’s (Lana Parrilla) help in finding her own magic, which may have set her on the path to their current predicament in Hyperion Heights. EW turned to Kane to get the scoop.

ENTERTAINMENT WEEKLY: Drizella is actually awake! Did you know this twist in advance?ADELAIDE KANE: No. No. No. I had no idea. I probably would’ve approached the previous episodes a little differently, but I’m kind of glad I didn’t because it gives me a really wide range of what’s she putting on and what isn’t she putting on, like what from the last four episodes was actually genuine and then what was just an act? Was it all an act? Were there moments of real genuine emotion and feeling and backstory there or has she just been full of sh— this entire time? But I think it’s very telling, her whole obsession with her mother and her childhood and how her mother controls her life like that, that’s important to note because if she’s awake, she’s awake for a reason and the reason is her mother, so whether her mother deliberately let her stay awake or what, it all depends on who cast the curse really.

Do you think Drizella cast the curse?
It would certainly suggest that she might be a strong contender. I think it would be really satisfying if Ivy were the one who cast the curse just because she is so downtrodden and angry and unhappy, but you know who really has a lot of power in either world? It’s her mother. Her mother has all the power and all the control and keeps her on a really tight leash, so she’d have to be a lot smarter than anybody gives her credit for to be able to pull that off underneath everybody’s nose. Who else? I wouldn’t put it past them having the curse cast by Alice from Alice in Wonderland, like in a fit of madness, or someone manipulated her into believing something that wasn’t true, because her character plays in and out of normal reality. I think that would be a cool direction. Let me think… maybe Cinderella cast it when she didn’t get her happy ending and wanted to find a happy ending in the real world. It could be anyone for this one.

What can you tease of what’s next following the reveal that Drizella’s working with the witch?
Oh, I think that the witch is a very volatile entity. I think it remains to be seen as to who’s using who in this scenario, like whether Drizella/Ivy is just sort of misguided and desperate and looking for a mother figure, whatever her plots are, wherever she can find it, or whether she truly is a mastermind type character, or whether she’s just a pawn in somebody else’s game. We’ll continue to develop that story line and see where that’s going and what kind of part she has to play in this whole curse. We get to explore more characters and their backstory, and get to see how far they’ve come, and what’s been going on for them between the time jump from the end of season 6 and now, the beginning of this whole new story and this whole new curse. Naturally things will get far more complicated as we continue on. There’s going to be all this good stuff coming up. It’s exciting. Some really, really juicy bits that I can’t tell you about because I’ll get in trouble.

Now knowing that she’s awake, can we trust anything she says?
I probably wouldn’t, but then I wouldn’t have trusted her before I knew she was awake. But I do think that she’s not one-dimensional. All of this pain comes from somewhere. This motivation isn’t just coming out of thin air, nobody’s evil for the sake of being evil. There was a path that led her down this road, and whether it was a path of her choosing or whether it was one she was forced into or been manipulated into, remains to be seen. I don’t even know at this point.

What do you think she ultimately wants?
I think she thinks that she wants vengeance against her mother for not loving her. I think that’s ultimately what she thinks she wants, and then I think what she really wants is to be loved and to be happy and she’s going about it the wrong way. That’s the example she’s grown up with. That’s all she knows. It’s the only word she knows how to say. She’s never been shown anything different, so she doesn’t know any other way to go about it.